River Crossing

Posted by Mike Parker on Jan 3, 2011 in Archived Featured, Pastors Blog | 1 comment

 7 And the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. 8 You shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan.’ “   Joshua 3:7-8

Last night I preached a sermon entitled, “With God Before Us.”  In that sermon I challenged our people to take a closer look at the command that God gave to Joshua in the above text.  Within this text there is a great promise, but there is also a great requirement.  All throughout Scripture we see God laying out for us His plan to bless His people, and I am confident that He will follow through with His promises.  However, we tend to focus on the promise without paying attention to the requirements, don’t we?

Within this sermon I pointed out three steps that Joshua used that can benefit us as we seek to live out God’s plan for us:

1. Pray

After reading Chapter 3 of Joshua, it is obvious that he spent a great deal of time communicating with God.  Generally speaking, we Christians do not spend enough time communicating with God in prayer.  Within any relationship, communication builds trust.  Our faith is built when we spend the proper amount of time speaking with the Father.  Which ultimately leads to the second step…

2. Faith

Joshua really stuck his neck out as he told the Israelites what God would do.  He said that God would help them to defeat their enemies, and he also said that God would perform a miracle of making the Jordan river stop its flow as the Children of Israel passed through it.  But, before that happened they must follow the third step…

3. Obedience

Faith, as a natural progression, was designed to lead to obedience.  That is where we tend to drop the ball.  It seems that the church today is very heavy on Faith Language without ever stepping into the water of the Jordan!  We have a hard time demonstrating our faith through Obedience! 

I say, “It’s time to get our feet wet!!”